Oxygen in space is recovered through advanced oxygen recovery systems, which generate large amounts of carbon particles that must be removed for proper operation, integration into the habitat, and crew safety. There are multiple oxygen recovery technologies that may be used in the future (e.g., Plasma Pyrolysis Assembly PPA, Bosch) that each suffer from unique carbon challenges. The PPA generates a small amount of extremely fine carbon (99.9% collection efficiency. The system has been modeled through computation fluid dynamics (CFD), rapid prototyped, and validated at relevant carbon loadings and fluid streams, at sub-ambient pressures, and operation independent of gravity. Current work focuses on reducing size, weight, and power, fully validating operation under all conditions (e.g., start-up), evaluating final carbon collection, and speed of filter regeneration. This carbon filter system enables long-term operation and implementation of advanced oxygen recovery systems.
Wagner et al. (Sun,) studied this question.
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